


The Ferryman

by RyMagnatar



Series: Ferryman [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ambiguous stuff, Dead Dave, Dead Eridan, Death, F/M, Ferryman Au, M/M, Monsters, dying, evil sea witches, lots of death, mythical stuck, other cool greek myth stuff, people running around and doing things after they die, some greek references, souls being carried across a river, war references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-25 17:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyMagnatar/pseuds/RyMagnatar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a man who is responsible for ferrying across the souls of the dead over the river of death. He is said to be a faceless man, who will, for a small fee, carry you across. </p><p>He is not said to be a being who denies you death, denies your gold, and denies permission for your presence in his world. And yet, that is exactly what the knight Dave is faced with while on his quest to recover the soul of his murdered Prince.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Ferryman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 year has passed since Eridan became Ferryman.

Standing on the edge of the river, you do your best to not look into the water below or the sky above. Fortunately your best is better than most so even when the waters churn with the milky white bodies of the dead crossing over, your eyes keep staring straight ahead. Soon, out of the mist, a boat comes floating across. There is a cloaked form standing at the back of it, holding a long staff that descends into the water and pushes the boat along. It’s difficult for you to imagine that this particular river has any bottom at all. You shove away that thought before it gets any worse, and look over the black cloaked form.

The shape is vaguely that of human, with what might be shoulders and what could be a cowl on top. The boat comes to a rest at the shore and you step forward, your heavy boots crushing the dry surface of the banks. You hold out your hand, a single gold coin in your fingers. “Allow me passage over to the other side.”

A shift in the blackness and suddenly the humanoid shadow is within arms reach. It takes the coin with fingers ashen grey, and turns it around, looking at both sides of it. It laughs, a sound that’s both haunting and familiar. “You bring me this? Of all types of money to pay your way.”

A shiver runs down your spine, “Well? Is there something wrong with it?”

“Of course not. All money of man and god is welcome here, so long as it is enough to pay the toll. However, for you, this is not enough. Return to your home, knight. You do not have enough to pass this way.” The gold is flicked back and you catch it before it can fall to the ground. You frown, holding the coin tightly in your gloved hand.

“That’s not how it works. I pay you and you allow me passage into the underworld, into the realm of death. I have business there.” The stories don’t tell of a mouthy guide across the water, but then, there are so few who get this far and come back it isn’t that much of a surprise. “I have much more than this, though I wasn’t intending to use it here.”

“Of course you were not.” The laughter is softer this time. “You do not have enough to cross. You will never have enough money to cross while you still live.”

“That isn’t how it works.” You snap again, “I have business on the other side of this river, now let me pass!”

“No.” The voice sounds almost like—

“I have enough money for a hundred of me to pass. I know you have done it for others, now let me over or I’ll-“

“You will what, Strider?”

The use of your name makes your voice die in your throat. On one hand it’s utterly plausible that once in death, a being like this would know any that crossed its path. On the other hand, the way it says your name…

“What will you do, in the event I prevent you from crossing this river of death, to enter a world where you will most likely not return? Will you push me off the boat, to drown with the already dead?” Then it laughs again. “Don’t be a fool, Strider. Return to your land of sunlight and breath. There is nothing here in death that you need.”

You clench your fist tightly. The edge of the coin digs into your hand, the face on the metal pressing against your palm. “You apparently don’t know me at all, even if you know my name. There is a man I have to bring back. He was put here unfairly, untimely. He needs to return. I know that he can because he was never completely mortal to begin with. He cannot truly be dead. He cannot reside here without his permission. I have come to bring him home.”

The silence lasts for a while. The cloaked figure dips his head down. “This man you come for,” his voice is soft, almost without breath. Perhaps the ferryman is dead, you think, perhaps he doesn’t need to breathe either. “He was a prince, part god and part man.”

“Yes. You know of him?”

“I know of all the dead I ferry across. He did not shut up the entire trip. I remember him easily.”

You laugh, because what more could you expect? “Yes. That’s him.”

“You desire to return him to the world of the living?”

“Yes.” You reply, “So may I pass? I need to find him and to speak of the Grandmaster of the dead.” You take a step closer.

The cloaked head lifts, “Why.”

“What?” You blink and then frown. “I need to see the Grandmaster to get pardon for his death, or at least to try.”

“No.” The ferryman lifted his head once more. You thought you could see the glow of his eyes from deep in his hood. “That is not what I asked. Why is that the man you wish to bring back. Why not another. Why not your brother?”

You stiffen. So he did know of you enough to know that. Your grip on the gold piece tightens until your knuckles are white. “He died with honor. The prince-  _my_  prince- was murdered. He should come back.”

“And you are the one to judge the timeliness of his death because?”

This time you take a step forward in anger. The only place to go is onto the boat, so you step one foot on the edge of it and you shout, “I am the Knight of Time! I know when people are supposed to go, and his end came too soon! I will cross this river. I will bring him back. There is nothing that can stop me!”

Once more the figure steps close, a shifting darkness until it looms over you, taller than any human could be. The hand reaches out and presses against your chest. “While your heart still beats, while blood flows through your veins and while you still breathe the warm air from the land of the living, may you never cross this river, never come back to this place of death and rot. Return to your home and finish up the time you have there. The prince you search for is out of your reach.”

Your heart clenches. You blink behind the shades because that is what everyone has told you since you found him dead in his bed but you—

You had held so much hope that you could change that. You feel so suddenly limp. So suddenly powerless. Your knees shake slightly and your hands lax. The coin falls from your hand, clatters to the bottom of the boat.

The ferryman pushes you back onto shore. You look at him, numb and heartbroken. Tears run silently down your cheeks. “Why-“

“He spoke of you.” The shadowed man replies. “He prays for you, even in his own death. Do not waste the last words of a dead man. Leave. Do not return until your time. Do not waste your hope on something you could not possibly do, mortal.”

With that said, the boat begins to slide back into the mist, over the dark water of white bodies of death. You scramble to your feet. “If you see him,” you call out, “If you see him tell him I have not forgotten my promise to him! I will protect his Queen for all my life. I will do it for him!”

You watch as he slides into the mist, a single nod of his head any showing that he heard you at all.

* * *

When you can no longer see the shoreline, you step forward and pick up the gold piece he dropped to the bottom of the boat. It shines in your cold, grey fingers.

On one side it is the symbol of a kingdom on land.

On the other it is your face.

You smile, ever so slightly. There are no mirrors on the river of death, no way to look at yourself, to primp as you used to. A vain prince with no way to be vain.

A prideful prince who had to work to ferry across every one of the dead that came through, peasant or king.

You tuck the coin away, warm and heavy, and sigh softly, closing your eyes. One year down. One hundred, ninety nine to go. You can still feel his heart beating under your hand.

It will be difficult, but then when is anything easy for you?

 


	2. Gift of Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave returns again, except this time with a wound so grievous it is fatal. And still the Ferryman denies him.
> 
> 15 years have passed since Eridan became Ferryman.

The sound of dripping was not uncommon.

In fact it was quite regular.

More and more warriors stumbled their way to the shore. Oft times your ferry is full of bleeding corpses. Drip drip goes their blood upon the wood of your boat, only to vanish once they either reach the other side to stumble into the gates or the slip over the edge and into the water.

War.

You could smell it in the air, thick and rank. Foul and viscous like a blood-based sauce for carrion birds. It gleamed in the cracked armor of the warriors you ferried, the warriors that slipped into the waters because they could not even wait long enough on the shore. Their battered bodies craved stillness, peace, and darkness.

From time to time, you guided a child across someone star-crossed to be important if only they were to survive. A set of twins sat in the prow of your boat, tiny hands clinging to each other. They were silent, shaking. When they had offered their coins to you, their eyes were both heterochromatic. One blue, one red; both staring at you blindly. Neither one smiles. They simply cling to each other’s hands tightly, desperate not to be separated. You wonder who they were supposed to become.

With the children come the civilians, most oft women. Once, you ferry across a woman with white-gold hair and a sorrowful smile that even broke your heart. All the way across she talks about simple things. She talks softly about friends who love each other, how complicated everything seemed to be, and about what she used to think was so important but hardly matters now. She looks up at you like she can see through the darkness, the void of your cowl and at your face. She says that you must have had such wonderful love when you were alive. She looks at you with a face of a lonely woman. When you took her to the other side, she kissed your cheek, even hidden under your hood and thanked you for being such a gentleman. She asked you where the nearest bar was, then laughed and said she was just kidding. She limped to the gates and you were surprised to find your eyes watering.

Occasionally were the once great, now aged, men of valor, privilege. Men who once could straddle the world but now could barely lift themselves into the boat, their dead bodies remembering only the restrictions of their aged forms. Weak voices repeated regrets, broken promises or the last words of these, the fallen ancient men of war.

Blood dripped from these, the dead of war, as you carried them to their final resting places.

The tide of death tapers down. The significant are surviving.

And then you come back to the far shore, pulled by that silent understanding, that silent need to be the ferryman. You guide the small boat to the shore and stop. A single man stands on the far side. He has his head bowed, his shoulders slumped. Unlike many of the others, his armor gleams gold and red- expensive and high quality. But much like them, the cause of his death lingers. Blood drips down the front of his armor, from his neck. You hear the burbling rasp you’ve come to associate to slit throats of those who try to breathe after death.

He slowly lifts his head. The obscuring glasses he once wore are missing, causing you almost to not recognize him. He’s also older. How many years have you been here? For a moment fear drives ice cold claws into your gut as you realize you’ve  _forgotten_  but then it comes sweeping back. Fifteen. Fifteen years here.

With slow blinking eyes, he looks at you. You know he sees what all others see, a shadowed form with grey hands holding a long wooden oar. What you see in him is the fading glow of life, like tendrils of fog lifting from his body. He’s near dead, so near dead that you could pull him into the ferry and keep him as your own half dead, half living pet, never have to let him go again, never have to push him away—-

“What did I tell you,” you say to him, cold and hard. You fight to get the image of him trailing his fingers in the river of souls out of your head. “Fourteen years ago, Strider. What did I tell you?”

“Heroic.” His mouth forms the word. The sound drops from his mouth as his air burbles out his neck. “Just. Proper. Protect.”

He tries to take a step forward. You swarm to the edge of the boat and shove him back once more. Your anger rises in you, forgotten for fourteen years. “How can you protect his queen when you are dead! Go back and—-“

“Died for her.” He comes forward again. You can see the lines of pain around his eyes, the frownlines around his mouth, the worry in his forehead. “My life for her life.”

“She isn’t safe!” You shout. You are thinking about enveloping him in the shroud of your darkness, your covenant, and keeping him with you. Who says there cannot be two ferrymen? “While you bleed here in the darkness and give up your soul to death, she is in danger! Is that how you keep your promises, Strider?”

“Let me be,” you expect anger or perhaps stubbornness with words like those. No. He drops to his knees at the edge of the river, hands up to you in supplication, “Let me cross. Let me be with him. Please. I did all. I did all. _I did all.”_

Heartbroken is not an apt enough description of your emotions. Heart shattered, heart crushed, heart slain are far more appropriate. Heavy in your pocket is a golden coin that waited fourteen years for this, for him to return.

You reach into your pocket and pull out the coin. You press it into his palms and fold his fingers over it. “Do more.”

“You cannot ask that of me,” he moans, weariness so audible it makes your bones hurt. “You have no right.”

The smile you give does not reach him. He cannot see you in this darkness. “Do more,” you say again. You push his hands closer to himself. “Go back and do more.”

“I cannot.” His voice is small. Small like a child’s. Broken like a forgotten woman. Weak as an old man’s.

You cup his face in your hands. It is, to you, warm. You know he loses his heat with each moment, though. He lifts the gold coin again, his red eyes pleading. When you take the coin, he smiles. You thought you had lost your heart before. You would curse him for bringing this pain if it was not your greatest treasure.

In your hand, the gold begins to melt with the death magic that you wield. Your gold covered palm presses to his split throat. The noise he makes is strangled and a near sob. He reaches up to claw your hands away. You seal the wound with the gold and draw your hand back. He is silent, mouth opening and shutting again and again.

Greedily, you lean forward and put your mouth near his. You breathe out the death from his lungs, absorbing the chill of his body and revitalizing him. The color returns to his cheeks, the strength to his hands. He grabs at you but you back away. “You should have let me-“ he begins to shout.

All at once he stops, though, hand going to his throat, the other to the ground as he slumps forwards on his knees. He weeps. You hear his breath. You smell the salt of his tears. Your own vision is blurred as you are moved by his emotion.

“Why will you not let me cross over? Why won’t you let me see him?” He sobs out the words, “My prince, I cannot continue without him!”

“You can.” You say solemnly. Your voice does not waver, even though your tears have blurred him only to an image of white, gold and red now. “You must.”

He shakes his head in silent denial.

“Do more. Live. It is not yet your time.”

He lifts his head. Tears shimmer on his cheeks like the dew in your garden from when you were alive. A droplet rests on his lower lashes. You want to brush it away with a finger, taste his tears, remember that sorrow even better. It sustains you better than the joy he brought you, at times. “When will it be? How will I know?”

Tilting your head to the side you consider this. “You will not,” you say at last. Then you fall silent, absorbing the curve of his face.

He lets his eyes flutter close and he takes in a deep breath. It is exhaled slowly. You see the gold flex along his neck with the motion. “I hate you.” He says without passion.

You can’t help it. You lean back your head and laugh and laugh at him. Pushing the boat away from the shore, you continue to laugh.

Angered, he shouts again, “I really hate you!”

“No,” you call back, “No, Strider. You do not.”

You continue to laugh to yourself even long after his burning bright image has vanished into the shadows of the banks.

* * *

The gold on your neck is smooth and cool. When you touch it, you can remember that echoing, haunting laughter and the words, “ _Do more_ ” inside of your head. When another touches it, they snatch their hands back with a red welt in the place where they touched the metal.

You return to the court of the Queen you are sworn to protect and you take up your sword in her name again. The war that was ended by her imprisonment is begun again.

This time, you kneel to no one besides her and at the end, you stand at her side as she sits high on the throne of white opal. In her cascading black curls, her golden crown shimmers like the gold around your throat.

Yet, strung on a cord of leather and hidden under your tunic, is a coin of the old kingdom. As always, your true allegiance is to the man who’s face is closest to your heart and framed in the gold that he adored. 


	3. The Ram Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A girl comes to the shore of the river of death and yet, after she crosses, she says she will not get off again.
> 
> She claims she must befriend death.
> 
> 28 years have passed since Eridan became Ferryman.

She smelled like ozone and ocean water. When she looked at you, her ruddy redbrown hair almost hid who she was from you. But those eyes.

You could never forget eyes like those. 

Soaked satin clung to her young frame, showing the hint of developing breasts and widening hips. She moved drenched hair from her face and smiled. There was a burn that had blackened the cloth on her shoulder and made her veins stand out dark red against her skin. She gave you a little smile when you stopped on the shoreline.

She held up empty hands and said, “I’m sorry, but the sea witch stole my mother’s gold before she let me go. I cannot pay the toll.”

You bow your head and gesture down to the river. Those without a toll swam. Whether they got lost or not on the way over was none of your concern.

“No.”

You arch your eyebrow, even though she cannot see it. You point again to the water.

She folds her arms tightly over her chest and shakes her head vigorously. “I will not swim.”

“Either you can go in willingly or I will drag you in myself,” finally you speak, “For you are dead and the dead will cross this river or be trapped in it.”

“No they do not.” She lifts her chin, “My mother’s knight Ser Strider has walked away from this river, he says he’s done it twice but only the second time was he dead.”

Your suspicions confirmed; your hand drops to your side. “How did you come to die?”

The question throws the girl off. She frowns at you, “Is that something you’re supposed to ask me? That’s not in any of the stories about death. You didn’t ask my mother’s knight why he died.”

“He told me anyway,” you reply, “How did you die?”

“I’ll tell you if you ferry me across.”

Those eyes sparkle at you, mischievous and too bright, especially for the dead. She’s caught you, trying to manipulate you. You would curse under your breath, but you are too proud of her to do so. The boat comes close to shore at your will and she climbs inside.

She sits like a lady on the wooden seat, her legs crossed at the ankle and tucked out of the way. Even though she drips water in your boat like she’s just climbed from the ocean, she smiles at you like you’re old friends. “The sea witch came back again. Mother says that years ago she came with a golden trident and hoped to take her kingdom, that she succeeded in tearing apart the crown, and taking over, even going so far as to slay Mother’s most trusted knight.”

The girl looks up at you then, a smile on her pretty lips. She has her mother’s smile, just like her mother’s eyes. “But you spurned his death. He came back, wearing gold like a collar and he sliced the sea witch’s trident in half. With her power broken, she turned back into the beast she was and slithered away into the depths. Mother kept the trident, melted it down and wears it as a golden crown upon her and my father’s head. For years she lay in the ocean while Mother rebuilt her kingdom. I was born then, in peace.”

There is silence for some time. The fog envelops your boat but never enters it. She is looking down at her hands. Her words become soft like silk, a whisper that is loud in the utter silence on this river of death, “They called me the Rose Princess, because my hair is red and my eyes are red and when they took me as a babe to be blessed in the temple of the gods the city was covered in roses.”

Suddenly she looks up at you, “But I also was called the Ram Child, and I like that name much more. Father says it’s fitting because I ran across the stones of the shore and climbed the cliff faster than anyone he’d ever seen. Mother told me not to do so, that it isn’t what a lady did, but Ser Strider always let me out anyway. He was so kind to me. I am so glad that you sent him back.”

You open your mouth to graciously accept her thanks but then she says something that would make your veins turn to ice if they were not already cold with death.

“It must have been so hard for you to do so, though, Prince.”

The boat stops. The fog stills.

Even the pale forms in the water around you sink down into the darkness, receding. You stare at her. If you needed to breathe you would have lost it then.

“I recognize your face from a portrait Mother keeps in her solar. She says you were her best friend and that the gods stole you away because you were too beautiful and vain about it. Mother’s knight carries a coin with your face on it, even though Mother has changed the face on the golden coin to her family’s sigil.” She looks down, picking at a line of her skirt. “Is something wrong?”

“How,” you have to remind yourself to keep your tone even, “can you tell?”

“When they took me to the gods to be blessed, the priestess said that I would know Death as though he were my friend. There was a prophecy that I would walk with Death and know him.”

“Your mother must have grieved,” You find the words are hard to speak with a heavy tongue.

“Why do you think she tried to keep me from climbing the cliffside? I thought it was a silly prophecy. How can you be friends with Death! Death didn’t talk!” She laughed, a light sound. You gape at her. You have not heard sane laughter in decades. It is a sound that makes your heart ache. It reminds you of your knight’s soft chuckles, his warm breath across your skin.

“But you do talk!” She says, “Mother’s knight said so and told me as much as he could about when he came here.”

You have to find a way to stop this train of conversation. “How does this tie into how you died, child?”

She moves her hair back over her shoulder, “The sea witch. She regained power, but instead of being able to walk on land again, she used the ocean tides to crash upon Mother’s people. She made the storms rage and the tides rise. She drowned fisherfolk and smashed the giant ships upon the rocks. She would not be appeased until she had the blood of the Queen, my mother.”

The little sharp eyed Ram Child shakes her head, “Mother could not go. I am the only other one with her blood. The city cried for relief but Mother cried in grief. I wore my best dress and went to the cliff. I was going to throw myself off.

“But when I reached the top of the cliff, I found Ser Strider standing there. He told me to go home. He never told me to leave the cliff before. He said that he would face the she demon and if it killed him then he would finally be able to rest with his prince.” She looks up at you again, tears in her eyes, “But I wouldn’t let him do it. I grabbed him and refused to let go. He shouted, pulled at me. I pleaded with the gods that I could keep him earthbound and save my mother’s people, save  _my_  people.

“That was when the lightning struck me.”

The waters part for the prow of your boat again. You think about him, standing upon the cliff, sacrificing himself for a child, for her queen mother. Dying for them, as you had asked him.

“I don’t remember the next part very well, except for the sea witch under the sea cackling as she tore the gold from my fingers- the gold ring from Ser Strider’s hand. And then I was sinking, sinking until I was here, and there you were.” The little princess girl leans against the side of the boat. She looks over the side and down at the water. A face floats up, bubbles pop on the surface with soft wails. “Why don’t you ferry across all the dead? Don’t people pay their way?”

“I am supposed to ferry across those who lived in such a way to deserve it. There is only one ferryman but the river of death is vast and deep and the people who die are as countless as the stars in the sky of mortals.” You consider telling her to not reach into the water. You decide against it.

“So, you ferry across the important. Who decides that? Do you?”

“No, that lies in the hands of Fate, and she only understands the actions of men in past, present and future.” A twisted smile turns your lips up at the corners, “Fate is deaf, child. All those who pray to her are just as those who never do.”

She looks up at you. Big dark eyes blink slowly. Long lashes frame her eyes. She would have grown to such a beauty, had she lived. Only the touch of maidenhood has reached her features. This girl before you is still more child than woman, oh but what a woman she would have become.

The boat comes to a stop at the far shore. The ground there is rocky this time, full of stones of all shapes and sizes. A slender, treacherous pathway leads the way through the rocks and to the far gate into the domain of the Grandmaster. “This is it, Ram Child. Your final climb in the rocks.”

“No,” She leans back in the boat. When she looks up at you, you see stubbornness that was never so bold in her mother. You wonder for the first time who her father was. “I haven’t made Death my friend yet.”

You open your mouth to order her out. You lift your hand to carry her out.

You do neither.

Bowing your head to hide your amused smile, you push back from the shore. “Let’s go see who needs to be ferried, then, shall we?”

* * *

Wan with grief, the queen lifts her hands to you. You reach out, taking them in both of yours. “You’re the only one,” she whispers, “You’re the only one who he has turned away. Please.  _Please_. I’ve lost so much already. If I lose her I shall lose all else I have left.” Her hands were ice, clinging to you like bone covered skin. She wept openly, tears making her eyes as red as her painted lips.

You lift her knuckles and kiss them. “My queen,” you search for the words to speak, “I will go. Pray to the gods that my travel is swift and that Death shows mercy to the young and sweet.”

She sobs, catches your face in her hands and kisses your forehead, “Go my golden knight. Take all my strength with you, and all of our prayers.”

You leave her in her chambers with her handmaids. Before you go, you step down a dimly lit corridor and into a small alcove. Your hand finds the coin around your neck and you grip it tightly. You have no prayers to the gods, only a hope that she was not lost to you as your prince was.

Without faith in the gods, hope was all you had left.


	4. Cursed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Knight comes to recover royalty once more.  
> But not the same one he has been seeking.
> 
> 36 years have passed since Eridan became the Ferryman.

“Ferryman!”

The voice echoes through the fog like a siren’s call through the misty waters of the moor.

“Ferryman!”

To any other, it would be just another shout, just another voice calling out. Even on this foggy river one voice is much like another. The dead mourn as well, with high, wailing voices. This one, however, is not like them at all.

“Ferryman, get your ass over here. You owe me a debt, and I want it fulfilled now!”

It’s a living voice. Brilliant and burning its way through your body. You lift up your cowl around your shoulders and look to the other shadow within your boat. When you gesture to the hood upon her shoulders, she rolls her big red eyes and puts it up. The grey cloth hangs over her face, obscuring all but her bright white smile.

“I know you’re here, Ferryman!”

A few strokes of your long pole down into the bottomless river and the shore comes into sight. There he stands, in blazing glory of burnished metal and red cloth. A torn cape hangs from his shoulders. You can see the curl of gears worked into the metal pauldron on his shoulder, even under the scratching and ashy smudges upon the metal itself.  The burnished silver of the chain that holds his cloak across his chest gleams like the chainmail you see under the red tunic he wears. The symbol on his breast is his own, like the one you remember, but modified.

The circle with the single jagged line through the center now has two jagged lines.  _Your_  jagged lines from  _your_  symbol.

In one hand he holds a broken blade, with chipped edges and a blood red rune at the base near the hilt. In the other hand he holds the arm of a grey skinned woman. Her long black hair is like seaweed, flat and tinged with green as it drapes down her body and onto the ground. The only color on her, besides the greenish hair and the ash grey skin is two golden horns, horns of true, pure gold.

Then she lifts her chin and looks up at you with enormous eyes, pupils as big around as a full gold coin, lined with the brightest ruddy pink you know. She smiles, her black lips parting for teeth like needles.

Strider jerks her by the arm and she hisses. Dark blood splashes down her body and onto the rocky shore. “About time for you to arrive,” he says. His eyes search you up and down and then flick over to the grey shadow of the Ram Child. You see the confusion on his face, flashing like a flame before vanishing under his deep scowl. “I have a trade, a life for a life.”

“First you demand and then you surrender and now you barter. Who are you trading his life for this time?”

He shakes his head, “I’m not here for the Prince.”

Your heart would have stopped, were it still beating.  

“I’m here for a Princess who came through here nine years ago.  This is the Sea Witch that brought her here, so the exchange is equal.” He shoved the Witch down to the ground. She crumpled to the ground, gurgling, bleeding and hissing. When she began to push herself up, he lifted his booted foot up and placed it on her back. “Give me the Princess for the Witch.”

“Nine years is a long time,” you reply, unable to look him in the face. “You think I can bring back those I’ve taken across?”

His eyes narrow. “Yes. You can do more than ferry the dead.” He lifts his chin. The gold gleams along his skin, a beautiful ribbon of metal that keeps him alive. “We are all aware of this.”

“You are gonna fucking regret this,” the Sea Witch’s voice is like bubbling oil. “You’re going to get krilled so hard.” Her long fingers dig into the dirt of the shore. “I curse you, knight.”

You can feel her strength. You can feel the darkness of her magic pulling out of the very air around you. The wisps of fog stir, swirling around you and moving towards her. You feel her power gathering, like a last, dying breath.

“I curse you, curse your bones that, for you,” she looks up from under her black hair, eyes wide and her teeth parting for her words. “for you, time will never run out.”

Her energy pulls through you, draining energy from you. Lithe fingers reach out and snatch two handfuls of your cloak and she grins up at you. “He. Will. Never. Die!”  The words are a spell, a spell that steals away your energies for her own use.

You drop to your knees with a gasp. You clutch the edge of the boat as it rocks from your sudden movement. She begins to laugh. Grey fingers clutch at your arms, your shoulders. She looks into your face, close enough to see under your cowl and her howling laughter only grows.

“Damn you!”

The laughter is cut off suddenly, immediately following the crunch of bone splitting. The body slumps to the ground and the head with wide open eyes and mouth is lifted away from you. Strider grips her hair and lifts her head up. “You witch…” he whispers to himself.

Everything swirls around you. You close your eyes against it. Cursed to never die. Cursed to never die?

“Ser Strider.”

You open your eyes in time to look up and see your little princess lowering her hood. She smiles and holds out her hands, “I’ll take her.”

“No,” you snap. You surge up to your feet and knock aside her hands. Grabbing her up under her arms, you lift her from the boat and drop her on the shore. “Take your princess.” Weakened, embarrassed, you remember the anger you felt when he said he wasn’t here for you. So he’d given up, had he? After three decades, could you blame him?

You take the head of the Sea Witch from his unmoving fingers and drop it into your boat.

Yes, yes you can blame him.

And you will.

“Take your princess and begone,” you wave your hand. You still cannot look at him, cannot look into his face, and cannot see his reaction to this. He came for the girl. You have been left behind. It was about time.

“Death!” That’s the girl. You can look to her. The grey cloak around her shoulders is fading. “You can’t let it end this way!” She reaches for you. When she looks like she’s about to climb into the boat again, you push from the shore with your pole. The boat drifts into the river. “Death, please. Wait!”

You use a wisp of your magic to animate the corps of the Sea Witch. The headless body slips into the water with a splash and finally, you can turn your back on them.

The Ram Child shouts for you, held back, you assume, by your knight.

No.

No, not  _your_ Knight.

He was not yours any longer.

You crouch into the bottom of the boat and scoop up the head of the Sea Witch. She still smiles, in her death, in silent laughter at you, at the knight, at your fate. You can still hear her laughing. With a hiss, you throw the head over the edge and wish you could do more than that.

Alone, you look down at your hands. Her gifts were like yours. Gifts of the Gods. Gifts that didn’t belong in anyone’s hands, not when they could steal the deserved afterlife of princes and the future rest of a knight. A gift? Hardly.

The Sea Witch was right.

It was all a curse.

* * *

“Ser Strider?”

You look up at the man who helped raise you, fend for you, and who did his best to always protect you.  He stands with his forearm across his eyes, shoulders shaking and his sword dropped. The sounds that he was making, oh, you had heard them before.

It was the sound of a broken man.

You reach for his free hand and squeeze it. At first you think he doesn’t feel it, through the leather and metal glove, but then he squeezes his hand back. Slowly, he sinks down to his knees, holding your hand tightly. “Ser?”

“I can,” his words are broken up with his ragged breathing. “I can never,” he’s shaking badly enough that he begins to rock forward. His hand drops down from his face to prop himself up, “I can never join him.”

There are no tears on his face, but his eyes gleam with moisture. His breathing is irregular and his eyes are wide, impossibly wide. He stares at the murky water and shakes.

You hold onto his hand and kneel with him. 


	5. Devotion to Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 71 years have passed since Eridan became Ferryman.

A semblance of peace descends upon the land of your beloved queen. When you returned with a renewed hardening of your heart and the princess in hand, the celebrations lasted a week. You were the hero once more, the golden throated defiant, the knighted thief of death. A rumor went out of the curse upon your head, your immortality was at first a story and then it became a challenge.

When your queen was threatened, you took up your sword and faced the enemy single handedly. No matter what bone was broken, what flesh was bruised, or how your skin was flayed, you did not die. You stood from the wreckage of armies that dwindled to champions and then at last, finally, to challengers.

Those around you were touched by time, cradled in its constant embrace like feet upon a sandy shore. The waves came in and pulled the sand out from under everyone’s feet except your own.

You watched as over time your beloved queen ages. Her voluminous black hair goes silver and then white. Her dark eyes become sightless and she walks with one hand upon her husband’s arm. In their old age they find serenity, they find joy. Her husband, the king’s, words grow softer and softer, until he finally loses his voice entirely. With her blind and him mute, no one is quite sure how they communicate, but they do. Hand in hand is how the rule, in sync with each other the way no other pairings you have ever seen before are.

Their daughter, the princess you brought back, grows from a child to a woman so quickly you call her a little weed in your teasing. For many years she just laughs and teases you back. On the night of her wedding, though, she tells you that a weed is just a flower unwanted and she sheds none of the tears you see in her eyes.

But she walks down the aisle with a veil so long it reaches the back of the cathedral when she stands at the altar. Roses flood the city during that week, and the week after the petals are found where you least expect them. While the red roses are poured out on the newly-wed couple, you find a small yellow flower with a blossom as big around as a gold coin and you give that as your gift.

She accepts it with grace and a single tear upon her cheek, taking the flower- typically considered a weed to the gardeners of the city- and places it in her hair beside her crown.

You don’t think there is anything particularly awful about her husband. He is a strong man, a chivalrous man, but he symbolizes the fact that she is not free. Those days she spent upon the rocky shores as a child are gone. Her freedom is wrapped up in her castle, in her city, in the people and no longer in her hands.

You know what it is like to have your freedom revoked. So you bend a knee at the throne and you pledge your life to her service. There is nothing else that your life is good for.

* * *

The king passes on in his sleep.

In the middle of the night you are awoken by a pale servant, their hand shakes so badly that the candle they hold nearly goes out. You arrive in the royal bedchambers to find the queen weeping softly, tears running down her aged but still beautiful face as she stroked the face of her husband and love.

She looked up to you and she asked you to do one last thing for her, one last service under her command.

You didn’t even have to ask what it was. You bowed your head and accepted your role as messenger once more. It suits you so much better than hero, you thought.

That is how you end up here, at this shoreline you know far better than any living man ever should. You stand at the river of death, with the soul of your king on one hand and the soul of your queen on the other. The closer you brought them to this river, the younger they became, as though the proximity brought them back forgotten years. Your queen shone like a star, her dark hair down to her feet and her big eyes looking about curiously. Your king burned like a flame, standing taller than he had in years, like all men did from his country.

You didn’t have to call the Ferryman this time, he appeared from the mists on his little boat in silence. If he was more hunched than usual, you didn’t notice it. You were saying farewell to your friends. She kissed your cheek and he gave you a hug that could crack ribs.

Then she turned to the Ferryman and held out her coin, “We’re ready. It’s been such a long time, and we’re finally ready.”

The Ferryman held out his hand and accepted their coins without comment. The king helped her into the boat and they both sat. They waved to you as they drifted back into the mists. Just before they vanish from sight, you remember.

It’s been years, and you’ve sought to forget, you’ve sought to lose yourself in time because it was the only possible way to survive, but here you can’t forget. Here, on this shoreline, you cannot forget.

You step forward, to the edge of the bank, and cup your hands about your mouth, “Your highness! Wait!”

You see her turn her head towards you, you see her patient, listening smile.

With tears in your eyes you cry, “Tell him I’ll find a way. Tell him I’ll find a way to get him out, I promise!”

You don’t know for sure if she’s heard you, because as you finish shouting, the mist enshrouds them all and you’re lefts standing alone on the banks of the river of death, again.

* * *

She isn’t your queen anymore.

While you row her across the water, she holds hands with a man you’ve never seen before except for his likeness in his daughter.

She doesn’t look up to your face, or see into your cowl. She does not know you.

You do not know her.

When you let her off at the other side and she walks towards the gate with her lover, her husband, in hand, there is no sorrow in your chest, no guilt or loss or anything. At least, there is nothing towards her.

You wipe away no tears, for you refuse to acknowledge them streaking down your cheeks. You push away from the shore and go to drift in the mists, waiting for another soul deemed worthy of your work. How could you believe that he would forsake you?

His fellows had called him a dog in jest, for his loyalty was unquestioned. And in the privacy of long forgotten bedchambers he had whispered that loyalty to you. You thought that he would forsake you? When you did all you could to drive him away, did you truly believe he left because he abandoned his feelings for you? No. All this time he had done as you bid of him. He had protected your queen.

And now she had died, had lived a full life and passed on peacefully.

Thirty five years you simmered in your anger and your hatred while he did just as you asked of him. No. For seventy one years he had only done as you asked of him.

But it was not time yet, not time for your redemption. So you could only, silently, ask him to keep on waiting. No gods would answer your prayers here, but perhaps he would hear them anyway. In a small way, your knight was a god to you.


	6. Branded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 81 years have passed since Eridan became Ferryman.

The river’s bank is dark but for a spot of white and red. As you grow closer, moving through the mists, you feel a smile cross your features. It is the first smile in a very long time. Your small craft comes to a stop near the water’s edge and you lean forward. “Hello little Ram Child.”

She looks at you with a wry smile, brushing red hair back over her shoulder, “Not much of a child anymore, am I?” She gestured to herself. From the softened square of her shoulders and full breasts, to her wide set hips and the rounded stomach she had, no, there was not much about her that was child-like anymore.

She glows with the vibrant light of the living, though, and you can see no mark of death upon her. “Why do you come here without need?”

“Oh, but I have a great need,” She puts one tanned hand on the silken white cloth over her stretched belly. “I have lost too many children and so I seek blessing from one who could help me keep my unborn.”

You tilt your head to the side, “I am neither god of fertility, nor am I one of hearth or home. Truly, I am not a god at all, but a currier. I shall not take you from those banks while you are so great with child, to see the god of death, or any that dwells with him in his castle.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Death,” she waves off your words as though they were nothing but stray flies. “I know you have power. In my kingdom, you have far more regard than you know! They worship you in temples by the river’s edge, and carve out your likeness in wood upon their ships. They say that with your eye over them, they need not fear drowning nor death.” She talks with a broadening smile, as though the thought is amusing. To her, it probably was. To you? The gods had your scorn more often than not. This life you lived now was some sort of game to them. If you had learned anything while dealing first hand with the dead of the world, it was that the lives of people were not to be used as pieces of a chess board.

The consequences of such actions resulted in too high of a sacrifice, when you spent a greater portion of your time guiding across the young, unripe lives of the youth. Too many wide eyed innocents had looked up to you in mute confusion. They wandered to your banks, clutching all too often a small belonging more precious to them than anything else, before they learned to treasure freedom or the warm afternoon naps of an older age. You were sick of the dead and tired of the dead children.

“So they worship me, as a god of death?” How fitting a title that would be.

She shakes her head in disagreement, however. “No, Prince,” Her eyes crinkle at the title, she gives you a small smile of sincerity. “They worship you as a god of safe travels, a god of protected passage. They imagine you with stave in hand and wings on your shoulders. They pray to you when the waters are wrathful and they must cross the seas. They pray to you when storm clouds rise in the sky and they must make it homewards in time to reach their families.

“You are the god of sure footing, the god of strong swimming, the god of full moons to light the way and the god of renewed strength when their legs grow weary.” She tips her head down, looking at her belly. You can still see the edge of her smile, and you imagine a loving expression on her face, similar to the one you saw her mother wear when looking to the children of her city. “You are the god of assured return, and all I ask of you is that you bless my child, that he or she may come safely to my arms and that I will not cradle another breathless babe at my breast.”

Her eyes, when she lifts them up to look at you, are dark and glossy with her tears. You would look away, but in her expression is all that your heart has been telling you. No more dead children.

You reach forward one grey hand and put it over her belly. You feel the weak heartbeat inside, the legs that struggle to kick and the hiccups of half-hearted gasps. You close your eyes and you do what came naturally to you, years past now. You take the death from the babe, you take the frailty of limb that would make her, and yes it was a girl infant, unable to survive. You steal away the claim on her that was her birthright.

You pull back your hand and your little Ram Child clasps it in both of hers. “You may not desire it so, Prince, but you are a god among my people, and I do not discourage them.”

You chuckle, feeling hollow as you do so, “I cannot hear their prayers but then when did gods ever hear the cry of a mortal? All I can do is offer them passage across the river of death when they come to me. It is up to you to prevent that for as long as possible.” Your humor leaves you and you turn your hand so that you can hold onto one of hers.

“You are the new queen, are you not?”

She nods, “I am crowned queen of the Ram Heights. I live to serve them.”

You tighten your grip on her hand and when you speak there’s a quality to it that it did not have before. Your words grow stronger, and you could say that they were booming were it not for the fact that you were whispering. Yet as you spoke it seemed as though your words pierced her to the very core. “As queen, you have the power, the authority and the ability to do for your people that no other could. As I have assured the life of your child, assure the life of your people. See to it that they live long lives in health and prosperity. Bring no ill upon them that you can prevent, and no war upon them that you can deflect. Come what may, I will spurn your child’s soul and return her to your realm, so long as you do this thing. Promise me this, Queen of the Ram Heights, and I promise the soul of your child is immortal.”

Her eyes grew wide as you spoke, and wider still as the power you invoked wrapped like an iron chord around your wrist and hers. A tear escaped from her eye, running its way down her cheek. “You put me in chains for the rest of my life, bound to the lives of my people? Why would you do such a thing?”

“We all carry our burdens, Queen.” You held tight to her still, “Swear me you’ll do as I say and you will have your child, your people an heir. If you do not…” You look down and away, towards the river of the trapped souls.

She stiffens. Your implied threat more than she will tolerate. With a firmness in her gaze that brings back the memories of your long dead queen- now a decade gone- she nods her head. “I swear to do this thing you have tasked me with. My people will know peace all of my years.”

You dig your fingers into her wrist tighter, you know that she will bruise from it, but you are consumed with the intensity of the ritual, “ _’No more dead children_ ,’” you intone the words, “repeat it to me, as proof of your pact.”

“No more dead children,” she replies much colder than you’ve heard her speak yet. “I swear it.”

The power surges out of you then, searing like a brand. You pull your hand back quickly, feeling physical pain for the first time since your arrival. You look down at your grey skin in shock. There is a quickly cooling mark, a burn in the shape of links from a chain on your wrist and forearm. Perhaps only four of the links were there, open ended at either side, but it was enough to remind you of your words.

You look to the Empress, and upon her tanned skin are angry red marks identical to your own. She holds her hand, her face lined with pain, and her breath comes quick and fierce. The fury in her eyes is contained as she looks up to you and says, “I hope it was worth it, Prince.”

You are resolute. You nod your head and step back further into your boat. You take your long staff in two hands, the cloth of your cloak slipping down from your arm to show the brand upon your skin. “Yes. I do hope so, Empress.”

You push against the bottom of the bottomless river and let your boat fade into the mist.

For a long time she is a singular white and red pillar in the distance, burning life in a dead land. You wonder what kind of face they give you, up in that city you’ve almost forgotten.

* * *

“You should have let me go with you to the shore.” The words are automatic, the moment you see your new Empress return. She is still with child, but you see pain in her gaze, and anger in the tightness of her mouth. Her hands shake and when you see the burn upon her skin, you make her stop.

She has no desire to be in this place, though, in this cavern full of jagged rocks of the pre-death. The place where the sun burns too hot and there is no drop of water. A creature of the ocean cliffs like her found little pleasure in a place where the only time you could find shade was at night, and where night was scarce to be found. This is the place where the souls passed, on their way to the Ferryman. This was the light that led them to their final resting place.

Yet you make her sit down and you bandage her wrist while she sits in silence, brooding. Her free hand is on her belly, though, running up and down over the swollen shape. It’s a motion you’ve grown familiar with, her unconscious attempt to calm herself down, and the child within her. This was her third one; all the others had not survived these late days in her pregnancy.

Finishing with the bandages, you put your hands over hers, over the child, and say to her, “Do you feel the heart beating?”

She sucks in a sharp breath and then looks to you. “No more dead children.” With eyes that were sorrowful, angry, but assured all at once, she speaks, “He has spoken, and I must obey.”

You bow your head in understanding. 


	7. Private Tones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 84 years have passed since Eridan became the Ferryman.

“I know this is foolishness,” You stand, not at the banks of the river of death, but at the large river that transects your city’s eastern and central districts. Dawn is creeping up over the horizon, pale blue and grey lighting up the eastern border. The people have erected these temples of wood and stone by bridges and docks up and down the rivers. There are even alcoves by the city gates where travelers place offerings before they leave or when they return.

“Even years ago, when there was sanity and light in my life, I was not one to pray to the gods. At ceremonies, holidays, of course I did my duty and went with others to the gatherings in the large temples.”  You shift, a little uneasy as you look at the carving in the wood. “But you are unlike the gods in at least one way. I have met with you, time and time again. You have rebuked me in life and death. You cared for my princess in her death and you guided my queen across the river.”

You glance over your shoulder, but no one is on the street behind you. Stepping up towards the small alter, you go down first on one knee and then a second. You look at the cloaked figure, etched in wood. “They call you a god, and pray to you. I would do the same.” The etching is of fine quality, considering its origin from the commoners. The figure is long, holding a stave in one hand and a coin in the other. The image makes the gold at your throat burn and you reach up one hand to touch the metal. Your second encounter with the Ferryman was clear for all to see who came upon you. Even if you desired to forget all the times you went and pleaded with him, you could not with such a reminder.

“You knew always what I must do, and were correct in many a difficult time. When I sought to shirk my duty and bring back a man from the dead, you guided me down the correct path. Indeed, you have been there to guide me, and in some cases help me succeed in my journeys. I would that you could guide me once more.

“The city is at peace. The people learning and growing, and the city itself expanding down farther inland. There is a strong guard about the palace, men from the King’s country, who are stronger than any other mortal being. The blood of the gods of the earth is said to run through their veins, making them somber, and powerful. Though they would like me to stay, and make no move towards removing me from my rooms in the palace, they do not need me to remain here.”

Unstrapping your gauntlet and glove, you pull it off with a tug of the leather with your teeth. You reach a hand up and touch the carving. It’s smooth under your fingertips, worn down from the hands of others who have touched it when they lay down their offerings or completed their prayers. You slide your fingers up to the hood on the head and murmur under your breath, “Sometimes I wonder why you do it. Do you work tirelessly? Are you a spirit that has grown in stature to a god? Were you once a man, as your form would suggest?”

Your thumb caresses what would be the face, were one carved into the statue. “Why help me? Of all those who cross your path, why me?”

Silence was your only reply, but you were foolish to expect anything more. Could he even hear you? Unlikely. Leaning back, you tug your glove back on and strap the gauntlet back into place. You rise to your feet with a little grunt, feeling the ache of oncoming rain in your joints. A foolish knight, praying to a spirit that was idolized as a god by ignorant people, you were no better than them, taking a knee and praying as well.

You turn around and step away from the temple.

_“You would not believe my answer, were you to hear it.”_

A shiver runs down your spine. That was his voice, the voice of the Ferryman. It was in your ears, in your _head_. You twist around and stare at the statue. It hasn’t moved, not even the light has shifted on the statue. “What?”

The silence is there again, and it stretches on for long minutes. The sun breaks over the wall in the east. Rays of light streak into the city, lighting up the steps to the small temple in front of you, yet the carving remains in shadow. You step back to it and reach up to the overhang with one hand, “Did you speak?”

Your heartbeat thumps loudly in your ears.

_“You heard… you heard that?”_

“How is this possible? The gods have never replied before, how are you able to do so now?” When you listen to him without his haunting form in front of you, the hollow sound of his voice is different, more familiar. It calls up old memories. It brings to mind silk sheets. Candle light flickering across the golden bands of rings. You shake your head to get the image out of your head.

 _“I have been hearing a lot more as of late, more than I would like. The reasons behind such occurrences are muddied.”_ There is no humor in his voice. Just fatigue and resignation. He sounds as though he is just going through one more trial and he has grown accustom to it as well.

“If I were to come down to your river, would you speak with me? Would you tell me the answers to my questions? I have no time for riddles.” It is so peculiar, speaking to open air, to a statue of wood in a shelter made of stone.

_“You have plenty of time for riddles. You simply do not have a head for them. Appear at my riverbank or not, it is your choice. I remain bound here despite what you choose.”_

“Then I will come to you. Even if I must stay there for years to get my answers from you, I will.” You feel a cold smile turn the corners of your lips upwards, “As you said, I have plenty of time.”

There is melancholy laughter in your ears, but his voice eventually fades from you and you are left standing alone at the altar. You take a step back and realize suddenly that you are not alone.

A woman with wide eyes and the muddy brown clothing of a peasant stares at you. Her mouth hangs open in shock and she says, pointing a finger to you, “You speak with the Ferryman. It is true what they say, you are his prophet!”

You bite back a curse as she goes racing off into the morning, down the street and around a corner before you can think to stop her and correct her. You sigh and look up to the heavens. Clouds gather above you and to the south. The ache in your joints is right. Rain is coming.

It would be a good time to get out of the city.

* * *

It’s a murmuring, in the back of your mind.

A half heard rumbling that you can choose, at any point, to pay attention to. At first you were wary, listening in to the voices in your mind, believing them to be the souls of the dead, or perhaps, that you were finally going to lose it in this place. But when you listen to them, actually listen to them, what you hear are prayers.

In the long hours of your endless work, you listen to the growing voices of the people who revere you as a god. Over time, some become more prominent than others, familiar voices with woes and others that whisper gratitude.

You did not expect to hear any voice that you understood, but then he spoke. He spoke not as he would at the banks, but closer to what you remember in your decades old memories. Because you have not aged in body, your mind has not forgotten a single thing of your life. Every memory is right where you left it, and where you return to it again and again when the oppressive death around you is simply too much.

He spoke to you in that softer, private way. The way he would when he pulled you aside into an alcove to murmur how you looked so fine, or even when he bent to your ear and whispered a message. He had been careful of you like no one else had, like you were a skittish foal and he had to get you to warm up to you.

You had fallen for him then and that same voice now broke your heart. When he asked why you helped him, of all people, you couldn’t help but answer aloud, as though he stood before you asking that. “You would not believe my answer, were you to hear it.”


	8. Prophet's Quest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 85 years have passed since Eridan became Ferryman.

The banks of the river are barren. Nothing but dark rock and gritty sand for as far as you can see to either side of you. The river is only visible for a stone’s throw out, and then the mist that is prevalent in the whole area becomes too thick to see through. The water is tempestuous with souls, yet, compared to your memories of this river past, they seem calmer. None reach out their pale hands to you, when you bend too close to the water. Even the eternal wail that echoed out into the air when one of them breaches the water’s surface is softer- something was different about this river.

He takes his time in approaching, the Ferryman does. And when he appears in the mist, he is a black shape on a dark green river. His hood hangs down over his head and one grey hand holds the staff. You can see, even from this distance, the black marks of chains upon his wrist. You have long since reconciled yourself with what he has done to your wildling princess-turned queen; but those first years a hatred had burned in your belly for him. You had seen her grow up, that wide eyed girl who ran the rocks like she had cloven feet and ram’s blood in her veins. She had been the princess, the heiress, and she had been a daughter to you. Your only family when you had no one but the distant queen and a memory of a lost love.

Now she was grown. Now she was becoming that distant queen herself. Now she did not need your watching eyes for she never danced along the wave beaten rocks. Now she did not need your reaching hand for whenever she rose to her feet there was the arm of her husband, _his_ hand outstretched to her. The storm chasing daughter-of-your-heart was out of your grasp now.

You shake thoughts of her childhood from your mind as the Ferryman finally comes to a stop before you. He holds onto his staff with two hands, grey fingers overlapping each other as he leans his weight against it. You open your arms as if to embrace him, or to present yourself. Your palms are up and facing out towards him. “Here I am.”

“Here you are, of all places.” The boat is still. You could so easily step from the shore and into the wooden craft. “Tell me, what is it like to come and go from my shores as though you are meeting an old friend?”

You chuckle, “Far less hospitable than any visit I’ve ever had the pleasure of enjoying.” You lower your arms. “Even my enemies would at least offer me a drink, or somewhere to sit down.”

“Those who sit in my boat are the dead or should-be-dead. Forgive me for being untrusting, but I know of your harbored desires to scour the land of the dead,” the Ferryman’s head tilted to the side. You liked to imagine that maybe you could see some chin, or jaw, under that hood, but in truth you knew your eyes deceived you.

“I cannot die. What harm is there in letting me look? I have all the time that I need to find him.” You take that step forward, towards the boat. “I cannot die. I know he’s still out there, muddled and lost as the other souls. You told me you ferried him across yourself. There was immortality in him, you know, he came from those far lands where the gods had walked among the men.”

“Had?” The Ferryman said curiously, “Do they retire to their beloved homes of the Far Ocean? Or are these the ones that dwell upon the Floating Continent? Forgive me; I am not aware of such changes in the land of the living. Do you know of his homelands?”

You pause, attempting to remember that which your beloved prince had told you of his home. You’re grasping at faded memories, though, and what you do remember you aren’t sure of. “He never talked much about where he came from. I hadn’t even known that there were two lands of his gods.”

“Ah.” The hood bobbed up and down with his nodding. “Perhaps his telling you of his partial immortality was just a boast? Perhaps no undying blood flows through his veins at all? He may just be working off the sins of his life as they were weighed by Fate as all souls do. Or perhaps, after so many years, he has ascended into a paradise that no living, breathing soul may enter- not you nor I or any other like us.”

Uncertainty brings you fear and your heart clenches tightly in your chest. Your hands turn to fists and you shake your head, “Why would he lie about that?”

“I know not. He is your prince. Do you know him best or is he truly a stranger to you? Did you know him in body only?”

You feel a rush of hot shame burn across your cheeks and it is swiftly followed by anger. You clench your jaw tightly, fighting back the cursing words that would have, so many years ago, been flung from your lips with ease and great satisfaction. Focusing your anger into a solid point, you tuck it away in your mind to be brought up when you could actually use it. You let out your captured breath in a heavy sigh and admit aloud, “I never knew him in body at all.

“I desired it and he did as well. Yet he had given his oath. And I…” You close your eyes, remembering his face clearly after all these years. His apologetic smile. His yearning gaze. “I loved him enough to wait until his honor would be spared.”

Even the souls of the dead are silent as you wait for the Ferryman’s response.

“Do you regret it? Do you regret waiting?”

You look up and imagine, if you could see his eyes, that you were meeting his gaze. “Never.” His silence carries on while you stare him down and he watches you.

Finally, the hood turns away from you. “Get in.”

For a moment, you hesitate. You’re sure that you’ve misheard, but he’s taken a hand off his staff and is gesturing to the boat. “You will not cross to the other side, but I have thought of a task for you- one that would make your prince admire you more. Get in and listen to me, heed my words.” His hand dropped, “Or you may go now and find your own path. You live without fear of death. I have no power over you except that which you give to me.”

With a curt nod, you step into the boat and sit down so you can see him. You fold your hands together between your knees and lift your gaze up to where his face should be. With a wry smile you say, “Have you not heard? I am your prophet, as I was his knight. Send me where you will, so long as it is closer to recovering him.”

 He laughed softly and turned the stave in his hands. You feel the boat slide through the water, the prow cutting through the eerie green, soul-filled liquid. You look down into the river, and even though a hand comes reaching up to you and there’s a strange desire to reach down towards it budding in your belly, you keep your hands clasped tightly.

“Your prince hails from a land far from the one you call your home in these latter years, and farther still from the place of your own birth.” The Ferryman doesn’t look to you as he guides the boat through the misty waters. “In his home there are three types of beings. There are the children of man, humans as you once were, with blood red and lives like burning flames. Quick to catch light, fast spreading during their lives and easily snuffed out if one knows how.

“Then there are the children of the air, the winged ones who resembled man in head and arms, but with great wings like a falcon and coiling tails where legs should be. They brood and breed in their floating world of towering buildings and air currents. Cherubs, angels, sprites; from far off these creatures are inspiring to man. They create such wonder in the landlocked humans, for whom flight is a power they can never dream to master. Up close, they inspire fear and terror, as even the youngest of them is wicked in claw and tooth and sour in disposition. Beautiful in the air, slaughtered when they approach the land below, they bleed red as man and bright green as new leaves. Approach them as you would any feral beast that was intelligent enough to be bothered to ask you how you were fairing as they tore open your belly.”

As the Ferryman speaks, he guides the boat to the shore. You watch as souls board the little boat, mumbling to themselves, shaking with a sickness and age that was leaving them the longer they spent on the craft. You watch as these aged creatures pass over the river in his craft and land on the rocky shores on the other side, disembarking and shuffling their way to the gates on the horizon. He pays no mind to the souls, as though this process was as common to him as breathing was to you. Yet you are fascinated to see that for some, the years pour off of them like water from an oil-slicked coat and for others they cling tighter like a blanket on a cold day.

“Lastly, there are the children of the water, willowy creatures that appear as man does but taller. They are stretched, in hand, foot and limb, with large eyes and spend as much time beneath the waves as they do above them. Their veins are filled with the ocean’s cold depths and bleed blue and purple at any prick through their thin skin.

“Though they are said to live and dwell in those lands, there will come a time when they must leave your living world and travel to their Far Ocean, from whence they came and the only place where they can rest eternally. They delight in mischief and adore the ever naïve and guileless man. Sometimes their play is gentle; to delay a merchant by twisting his boat about, or a traveler by flooding his roads. Sometimes their play is fatal; with bloated bodies of drowned men and women left at the banks of the ocean and carts in pieces against trees from waves that reach past the beaches to crash upon the road just inland. In a kind mood, they are your friend. In a foul mood they will delight in your death.

“In his homeland, these three beings dwell. And though the children of water and air sound vile and cruel, the children of man are more so.” He turns his hood to you briefly, letting the boat coast across the waters, “They must be, lest they are run out, slain or killed in sport.”

“This is the place my prince came from? He was no cruel man at all.” He was vain, you remember, and at times petty, but his heart was so easily softened by the words of those close to him- if they were spoke in the right way. You would have never fallen in love with a monster.

“That is where he was born. Where he was raised. It was all that he knew until he wished to know it no longer and he and his brother departed those lands. But know this, knight, where there is a man there was once a boy and that boy may look nothing like what he grows into. The tadpole is a head on a wriggling tail, but it becomes the tail-less, four-legged frog in adulthood.” Another soul departed from his boat a wisp of a thing so faint you had barely been able to make out her features.

“You tell me of his lands, and warn me in this way, but you do not tell me why. What is it that you would have me do?”

The Ferryman was looking towards the gates of death. “Find the past of your prince. Dig up his roots and expose them to your own judgment. Fate may judge the soul’s deeds and impart a debt to be paid in the land of the dead, but you are judging the man’s heart.

“You knew him when he was comfortable and vain, when he was at peace except for the tribulations that he brought upon himself with his desires. Know him as he was, when he lived in a land that bled blue and red, purple and green. If his family line has ended in him, seek out his brother. If it has ended in his brother as well, seek out those who knew him. He was no boy from a mud brick home, knight, but a prince when he left.” He pushes away from the shore. The boat idles in the water for a time, swallowed up in the mist that is ever present. Once again he looks at you. You find it hard to look at him, though you do not know why. You force yourself to hold his gaze.

“Which way do I head? How far do I travel?”

“Go east, as the sun rises, and stop only when there is the constant shadow of the Floating Continent overhead. There will be a city dug into the mountain side. You will recognize his family crest upon the flags and then you will be there. Search until you discover who he was. Perhaps that will aid you on where he could be.”

The shore is in sight again. It is the same place that you stepped on. There are your footprints in the grey sand. “I do not go for chances and perhaps. If I go, it _will_ lead me to where he is.”

“If you go,” he murmured as you stood, “It will surely tell you _why_ he is gone from you. Farewell, knight. Travel safely.”

You can’t help the amused look you give him as you disembark. “Of course I will. I have you watching over me, don’t I?”

He chuckles at your words and before he is out of reach, you feel a hand give a glancing touch to your shoulder. “Always, Strider. Always.” You twist around to say something but he’s faded off into the mist already.

A strange shiver runs down your spine and curls around to your groin. Shrugging it off as best as you can, you walk up the beaches, and follow your tracks back home. You had a trip to pack for.

* * *

You look at your hand. He had been within reach. You had him on your ship. You had him _here_. But you could not keep him.

You could not tell him who you were.

So instead you sit where he sat, imagining that he was there again with you, and lean back, closing your eyes to hold back the tears. You had sent him into your past. You had him here, within reach, and you sent him as far away as you could.

Maybe this place _had_ taken your sanity.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaand that's the end of the "Ferryman" section. Next up will be Dave on his quest over the mountains! Enjoy.


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